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Thursday, 5 September 2013

Eight Days Of Dave - Day 4: The IDW Covers

DAVE SIM:

Hi
Tim - I think what I'm going to do is just blather -- since this is our
first time doing "after the issue" -- and leave it up to you if you
want to run the whole thing all at once or dribble it out. Issue 2 of The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond took about two and a half months. I hope I get faster but I'm not counting on it.

The Colonized #1-4 (IDW, 2013)Art by Dave Sim

IDW COVERS

I'm
not sure how many covers I did for IDW. I think more than twenty. And
yes I do plan to continue selling the originals. That was part of the
deal I made with myself. "This is work-made-for-hire. You don't own
these. So it makes sense Not To Own These." RIGHT, Dave? Huh? Oh,
yeah, right. There's no reason to own a cover that you don't own. And
if you take what I was getting paid to do them and add it to what I can
sell the original for, it's actually a very good revenue stream. There
are problems that I didn't anticipate: the biggest one is getting
competitive with myself. I want to do better and better covers. But
that doesn't...mesh...with the original concept: if I can do four
covers in four days, that will cover my expenses for the month and I can
spend the rest of the time doing THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.
Which is a very, very different thing coming from a very, very
different place in my creativity. So you get the "gear-switching"
problem. I'm still thinking "cover" and it's time to be thinking
"comics". I'm still thinking "comics" and it's time to be thinking
"cover". And the covers are now taking four days instead of a day. So,
at a specific point I had to stop and see if I could just do STRANGE
DEATH and with my other revenue streams keep my head above water. And,
yes, it looks like I can.

But I can feel myself starting not to exist.

If
you're doing DOCTOR WHO covers, in a specific sense you exist in the
comic-book field in a way you don't when you're not doing DOCTOR WHO
covers. Certainly in a way I NEVER existed when doing CEREBUS. And I
don't know how important existing is, in that sense. My impression,
though, is that it's very important. So, at some point I have to start
doing covers again. But I don't know how many or how often or which
ones. I suspect Super Popular Genre Covers. X-FILES, DOCTOR WHO, JUDGE
DREDD. Where I can do the photo-tracing, Al Williamson inking thing. I
think that helps support STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND. Oh,
photorealism. I didn't know what you were talking about. Oh, right.
Yeah. Read the guy who did the DOCTOR WHO variant covers talking about
photorealism. Cool. But if the covers stop coming out, it becomes "Alex
Who? And I should care about this why?" So part of me is now picturing
WHERE the covers stop coming out which is WHERE I have to have another
one or two or three in the pipeline. While trying to avoid saying to
Chris Ryall, "Can you toss me some cover slots that I can do or not do?"
You do them or you don't do them. But you don't play Hamlet somewhere
in between.

And the scheduling is strange. Scheduling
doesn't seem to exist any more. There will be three weeks where I won't
get a new cover in and I don't know if I slipped off the comp list --

[Part
of my deal with IDW is that I get 100 copies of each of my variant
covers. I'm enough of a fanboy to try for that and, hey, it worked. And
if I don't get them when they're passing through the warehouse, well --
it's like asking in the cafeteria if they've got any of that blueberry
pie from three days ago. We're past that now. Catch up. They stretched
a point and dug up 40 copies of JUDGE DREDD: YEAR ONE #3 (I think it
was). Which I know probably came out of another kind of supply
entirely. 40 people didn't get theirs because I got 40. But I also
don't want to bug the editor-in-chief or the publisher -- "Hey, where's
my 100 funnybooks?" There are much bigger fish to fry. Just yesterday I
got in my 100 THE COLONIZED #4 -- but I never got #3. AARGHH!
Fanboy/investor/collector at one level but MORE important: I can't read
#4 until I read #3. I'VE GOT 100 COPIES OF A COMIC BOOK I CAN'T READ!!
And I'm also picturing bagging and boarding sets: get all 4 issues of
THE COLONIZED signed by Dave Sim in this nifty display case. Did JUDGE
DREDD #4 come out yet? I've only got the first three. It's nothing that
should occupy the attentions of a 57-year-old man -- going on, like,
14. Dave, WHEN are you going to find time to sign and bag and board sets
of THE COLONIZED? I dunno.]

Judge Dredd Year One #1-4 (IDW, 2013)Art by Dave Sim

But it's really just that a book gets done when it gets done. It gets to the warehouse when
it gets to the warehouse. Sometimes I get the 5 comp copies that are
standard but which is really, you know, redundant. Dude, we're giving
you A HUNDRED mostly because you're Dave Sim and you're the only artist
stupid enough to want that many and Ted likes your work enough not to
say, Get a grip, bud. A HUNDRED?!?

A box of 100 weighs
about fifty pounds. They come in with big warning stickers on them
DANGER! EXTREMELY HEAVY! The cab driver today: "Wow! What IS this?" Uh,
comic books. "It's WHAAT?" 100 comic books. That's what 100 comic
books weighs these days. They print them on thin shiny glossy sheets
of... pig iron, I think it is.

So part of what I'm
doing with Heritage is signing and numbering 5 copies of each variant
cover to sell with the artwork. So, today I got in 5 copies of DOCTOR
WHO PRISONERS OF TIME #6 and #7. So, I sign them and number them and
FedEx them with the covers to Heritage. Because Heritage has their own
schedule. You send them the art and it needs to be processed and
scheduled for auction and then a month after that you get paid. "Dave
get them OUT OF HERE! That's GROCERY MONEY!" Which part of me
understands. But I'm sweating, right? Joe Fanboy. Uh...uh...these are
the ONLY ONES I've GOT. I only got to read them ONCE. What if I don't
get any more? I had #5, #6 and #7 and now I've only got #5. The things
that give fanboys night-sweats. And they're starting to take up a good
chunk of the basement. Big stack of fifty-pound boxes. Sometimes I
can only shake my head at myself.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Y'know, it's too bad that Dave can't just work with Gerhard on the Strange Death book. No doubt Dave can do it all on his own, and do a phenomenal job; but it would probably be almost as good, or equally well done, or better with Gerhard and get finished in half the time.

Considering it takes Dave 2.5 months to finish an issue, the two of them could easily maintain a bi-monthly schedule so that the book could be published as it is finished, and so that Gerhard could get paid as it is published, while Dave could still supplement his income with the IDW covers. Gerhard could still supplement his income with commissions as well. And it might be easier to promote the book that way.

I recognize that this is all so much wishful thinking though, and almost certainly impossible. Just wanted to express the idea.